


Zuko Doesn't Have a Mark

by OccasionalStorytelling



Series: Avatar Soulmate Marks [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Deaf Character, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, it's zuko but he never tells anyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24874900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalStorytelling/pseuds/OccasionalStorytelling
Summary: It's not really that he doesn't have a soulmate mark. It's that his father burned it away, and it never came back. Zuko knows it's because he doesn't deserve a mark in the first place, much less one for someone in the water tribe.Sokka is just happy he finally got his mark.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Avatar Soulmate Marks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799902
Comments: 22
Kudos: 1148





	Zuko Doesn't Have a Mark

“We’d better hurry up and deal with the Fire Lord quick. I’m not getting any younger, and this is definitely a fire nation mark,” Sokka said.

“You’ve had it for a month now, took you long enough to figure out that the _literal flame_ on your palm is a fire nation mark,” Katara sighed.

“I mean, unless Zuko’s my soulmate. Hey Zuko!” Sokka yelled. Zuko was sitting by the campfire. He didn’t look up. “The dude’s ignoring me. I can’t believe this. Hey, Zuko!” Sokka yelled again. Zuko looked up.

“Did you say something?” Zuko asked.

“Yeah, do you have a soulmate mark?” Sokka asked.

Zuko pointed at the scar twisting over half his face and deforming his ear.

“That doesn’t count, that’s basically an injury,” Sokka said.

“I don’t know, Sokka, it’s shaped like a handprint,” Katara shrugged. “What, did you have a crush on Zuko and you were hoping this was your moment to tell him?”

“No,” Sokka said, shoving her in the arm. He looked back at Zuko, who was still sitting by the campfire. “Maybe. But it doesn’t matter, apparently both of our soulmates are in the fire nation. We’ll just have to have Aang kill the Fire Lord really soon so Zuko and I can start looking.”

“Real sensitive to the fact that our friend is going to have to try to kill our other friend’s dad,” Katara said. “You know Aang’s still…um, deciding what he’s going to do, exactly.”

“I really don’t see a way around it,” Sokka said. “Fire Lord’s gotta die, Aang’s gotta kill him.”

“I know, it just…it almost doesn’t feel right. Doing that to Aang, I mean,” Katara finished. “The Fire Lord deserves what he gets, I just think ti would crush Aang to kill another person.”

“You know what I think?” Sokka said, poking her in the forehead. “I think you’ve got an arrow tattoo on you that you’ve been hiding from me, somehow.”

“I wish,” Katara laughed. “I wish I _had_ a mark. It seems like everyone I know has theirs now.”

“Hey, Zuko!” Sokka yelled. “Hey, Zuko! Zuko!”

“Should I come over there? What is it?” Zuko snapped.

“When did you get your mark?” Sokka asked.

“Um. Three years ago,” Zuko said, “But I’m done talking about it.”

“Talking about what?” Aang asked, entering the courtyard.

“Zuko’s soulmate mark,” Sokka said, covering his eye with his hand and making an angry face.

“That’s not what I look like,” Zuko groaned, putting his head on his knees.

“Do you have one, Zuko?” Aang asked.

“Uh, yeah. It’s all over his face, buddy,” Sokka laughed.

“That’s not a soulmate mark,” Aang said. “I’ve never seen a mark like that, ever. I mean, look at yours, Sokka.”

Sokka’s mark was black line-art, just slightly raised from his palm. It was a flame, curling gently into a spherical shape.

“Look at mine,” Aang said, and he lifted up his shirt. Black line-art, slightly raised from the skin over his abdomen. It was a swoosh of water, lazily dragged over the skin.

Zuko’s face was clearly burned scar tissue.

“That’s not a soulmate mark,” Aang said.

“It’s the closest thing I get to one,” Zuko said, quietly. He looked up, and saw that everyone was looked at him. He pushed his hair away form his eye so they could get a better look. “I don’t get one anymore. My father burned it off of me when he saw it, and since then, I haven’t done anything that would make anyone from the—“ He cut himself off when he realized where he was going with that sentence. For some reason, he didn’t want Sokka to know it had been a water tribe mark. To add that embarrassment to everything else he’d suffered through his whole life…didn’t seem worth it. “—from the other nations want to be with someone like me,” Zuko finished lamely.

“It’s not about _wanting_ someone, it’s about your _soulmate!_ ” Aang jumped up and down, excited. “Do you remember what it looked like?”

“No,” Zuko said.

Toph came stomping around the corner. “What’s going on? Whatever Zuko just said, he lied about, I felt it from three rooms away!”

“Ugh,” Zuko said, putting his face in his hands.

“You should draw it for us!” Aang said. “We could help you figure out what nation it’s from!”

“I’m really not that good at drawing,” Zuko said, “And I don’t want to do that.”

“Aww,” Aang pouted.

“No, Zuko’s right,” Katara said. “A soulmate mark is a personal thing, meant to be shared between just two people. If Zuko doesn’t want to tell us more, he doesn’t have to.”

“Fine, then everyone can look at my mark and tell me how excited they are for me to meet my fire nation soulmate,” Sokka said, waving his hand around pretending to fire bend.

Zuko rubbed at the scar tissue where his eyebrow used to be. He remembered exactly what it had looked like. Well, mostly. It had been a long time. But he knew Iroh had drawn a picture of it, before Ozai had burned it off. Maybe that picture still existed somewhere.

It wasn’t like he needed it as a reference. The first time Sokka’s boomerang hit Zuko in the face, he knew. Sokka’s boomerang had been patterned over Zuko’s eyebrow, along with water droplets, in beautiful black line-art. Realizing that it was Sokka was like being struck by lightning, in that it was instantaneous and painful. Zuko had a mark for Sokka, but he knew that no one from any nation would ever get a mark for him. Once, Mal had drawn the shape of his scar on her arm as a surprise for him, but it washed off. And he knew he’d never be good enough for a soulmate anyway, not after what he’d done in the three years since it had burned off his face.

That was why it hadn’t come back, Zuko figured. Maybe it wasn’t that his skin had been burned beyond hope, it was just that Zuko was fundamentally broken, and outside of the soulmate system. His good eye was getting wet, so he pretended he was shoving his hair out of his face so he could wipe away the tear before it fell.


End file.
